Protest Over 'Illegal' Parking Bay in St Margarets Road

“Nigel Wise, who works as a carer in Lyndhurst Avenue, Whitton, was slapped with the £50 fine after stopping in a loading bay in St Margarets to check the signs for two minutes in April.

…

However, Mr Wise has refused to pay his fine because he claims the parking bays are illegally marked.

After careful research he discovered the bay was not marked in accordance to the rules set out in the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 guide, which states loading bays of that type should be no more than 13.2m in length.

Mr Wise said: ‘The bay in question is over 15m long. It therefore can’t be classed as a loading bay.

This is about people who have been tricked into parking in a bay that was wrongly marked out as a Parking Bay. The trick was completed by a camera that is permanently focused on this bay. People later received unlawful tickets issued by this camera that was installed under the guise that it would be used for the purpose of detecting of crime etc. This camera is being used almost exclusively for "enforcement". For "enforcement", read unlawful revenue gathering. The council did NOT contest my appeal because they knew that they stood no chance of winning it. They also did not want to have a court rule against them as this would have made their task of retaining this already illegally obtained money, harder. Instead they used a councilor to issue a statement to the effect of. 'We have your money illegally obtained by us and we are keeping it'. They are refusing to refund people who have already paid illegal tickets under this unlawful restriction. This illegally obtained revenue is ring fenced and will only be used to finance more unlawful restrictions. It will not reduce any Council Tax. The council thinks, quite wrongly, that it is morally and or legally correct to retain money that they have illegally obtained through an unlawful restriction. That amounts to an admission that they subscribe to unlawfulness and illegality. The council are living in cloud cuckoo land in believing that any court will uphold this preposterous situation. This is born out by the fact, that despite the council wasting time and money in a failed attempt at making the bay comply with legislation, the bay is still unlawful. Watch this space.

Nigel Wise at 25 July 2010 11:22 PM

Nigel Wise on 2010-07-26 20:43:15 +0000

I had a meeting with Andrew Darvill The Assistant Director for Traffic and Transport at Richmond yesterday morning. This was at the unlawful loading bay in St Margarets. See RTT 8/7/10 & 23/7/10. Also in attendance was Felicity Smart Independent Candidate for St Margarets. The continuing illegality of this bay after being remarked was discussed. The Council are looking into this. The 'Cash Cow' Principal was also raised. Also discussed was the fact that unlawful bays litter the borough. The Council are currently conducting a review of all bays. This is after I have pointed out these bays some of which have now been repainted.

Nigel Wise on 2010-08-17 08:12:59 +0000

6:34pm Mon 16 Aug 10 I had a meeting with Andrew Darvill The Assistant Director for Traffic and Transport at Richmond this morning. This was at the unlawful loading bay in St Margarets. See RTT 8/7/10 & 23/7/10 Also in attendance was Felicity Smart Independent Candidate for St Margarets. The continuing illegality of this bay after being remarked was discussed. The Council are looking into this. The 'Cash Cow' Principal was also raised. Also discussed was the fact that unlawful bays litter the borough. The Council are currently conducting a review of all bays. This is after I have pointed out these bays some of which have now been repainted. I had a meeting with Andrew Darvill The Assistant Director for Traffic and Transport at Richmond this morning. This was at the unlawful loading bay in St Margarets. See RTT 8/7/10 & 23/7/10 Also in attendance was Felicity Smart Independent Candidate for St Margarets. The continuing illegality of this bay after being remarked was discussed. The Council are looking into this. The 'Cash Cow' Principal was also raised. Also discussed was the fact that unlawful bays litter the borough. The Council are currently conducting a review of all bays. This is after I have pointed out these bays some of which have now been repainted.